Perry try spares Bristol's blushes

Jason Strange missed the chance to sneak Bristol into pole Premiership position, thereby ensuring a just verdict on a match neither team deserved to win.

As dishonourable draws go, this one will take some beating.

The Welsh fly-half's failure to nail the winning conversion from a difficult angle with the last kick denied the 100-1 championship outsiders an improbable perch one point above the only two other unbeaten clubs, Gloucester and Wasps.

Having sat through a shambolic match, even their most biased fan would concede that such a position was too implausible to justify even at such an early stage of the campaign.

That Saracens contributed to the morass of mediocrity in equal measure makes Andy Farrell's long-overdue debut at second-team level all the more welcome.

For all the fumbling and blundering of two teams unable to offer much more than hard labour and buckets of sweat, the general shoddiness produced a rousing finish.

Bristol had been clinging to an 8-7 lead after a rare try from Darren Crompton, 34 tomorrow and the junior member of the oldest front row in the game, until Dan Scarbrough followed his early try by dropping a goal from 50 yards.

When fly-half Glen Jackson followed suit, Bristol had six minutes to save themselves. To their credit, they cranked their rolling maul up for one last drive from close-range and Shaun Perry, England's scrum-half-in-waiting, claimed the equalising try.

As if the game wasn't bad enough, Richard Hill had to put up with the absurdity of naming three Bristol man-of-the-match contenders with several minutes left so all three could be judged on what the public address announcer called the 'cheer-ometer.'

Bristol's head coach will take immediate steps to prevent the same embarrassing scenario happening again.

"I shall have a little word about that," he said, before volunteering a typically candid appraisal of what he had seen. "We were not good and, fortunately, Saracens were not on form either. I don't think either side deserved to win.

"It was a shame. The sun was out and everything was set for a good game of rugby but it didn't happen. The players are angry but I'm pleased with the way they fought back at the end and glad that we've got away with a draw."

Sarries got away with it, too, although they had less excuse given that they had started in a blaze of glory, skipper Simon Raiwalui firing out the pass for Scarbrough to touch down in style.

In the heat, they would have expected to make Bristol's ancient front-five suffer.